The Sporting News is the first and foremost publication that is referred to by
baseball historians when engaged in research. Old issues of TSN before 1980
(and especially before 1970) are recognized as the most comprehensive and
historically accurate chronicle pertaining to baseball history. From its
beginning in 1886 through the early 1960's, TSN content was solely baseball and
each issue year-round was a treasure that carried every tidbit of baseball news,
editorials, anecdotes, and gossip as well as special features on players, and
executives who were creating all the excitement of the time. Each issue was
loaded with photos and caricatures done by cartoonist such as Willard Mullen.
They were so skilled at their craft that their drawings were so vivid that they
made their subjects look more like themselves than actual photos. Each issue
during the season carried every box score and a synopsis of every major league
game played during the preceding week as well as up-to-date seasonal stats of
all players. In short, each issue of TSN fully documented every aspect of the
game in a neat seven day time capsule that is forever frozen in the march of
time. It is no wonder at all that during the Spinks family regime from 1886
through the 1970’s, The Sporting News was widely known as THE BIBLE OF BASEBALL. Every issue of the sporting news from 1886 through the November 23, 1963 edition carried the slogan: THE BASE BALL PAPER OF THE WORLD right below the logo.